Immoderate mourning for the dead, prov'd unreasonable and unchristian. Or, Some considerations of general use to allay our sorrow for deceased friends and relations but more especially intended for comfort to parents upon the death of their children. By John Owen, chaplain to the right honourable Henry Lord Grey of Ruthen.

COMFORT FOR PARENTS UPON THE DEATH OF THEIR CHILDREN.

2 Sam. xii. 21, 22, 23. 21.

Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the Child while it was alive, but when the Child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread.

22.

And he said, While the Child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether

God will be gracious to me, that the Child may live?

23.

But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

BEfore I fall directly upon the words in the Text, it may be convenient and necessary to give you some previous account of the occasion of the Death of the Child which David had by Bath∣sheba, in the time of whose sickness David mourn'd exceedingly, and was much cast down, and took on heavily, and after whose Death he seem'd to be comforted, and to take heart; which occasion'd these words that I have now read unto you. Now in the Chapter immediately before this, we have a sad story and rela∣tion of Davids Adultery and Mur∣der; how that from the temptation of his own idleness, and Bathsheba's Beauty, he committed Folly with

her, and drew aside the Curtains of her Husbands Retirements; and when he had overcome and corrupted the Wife, there is mention of the great Artifices which he used to bring Ʋriah the Husband to cloak and cover this foul and shameful sin of his; and when Ʋriah out of pure Loyalty and a hearty Zeal for his service, refus'd to take that ease and pleasure which David under a co∣lour of love and friendship advis'd him to, and when all those little arts and ignoble devices of enter∣taining him in his Palace, and at his Table, and making him drunk, would not bring Ʋriah to his pur∣pose, then how basely and unwor∣thily does he plot and contrive his Murder, by giving Orders to his Ge∣neral to set him in the most dange∣rous place, in the Front of the Battel? which poor Innocent Ʋriah might possibly take for an Honour, and in∣terpret it an Argument and esteem of his greater Courage, when in

truth, he was onely plac'd there as a mark to be shot at, and to fall a Sacrifice to his Sovereigns Lust. Which accordingly hapned, Ʋriah being slain upon the spot, and dying in that station where it was not like∣ly he should live. And when Da∣vid had thus secretly in his heart de∣signed Ʋriahs Death; yet when news was brought to him that Ʋriah was dead, he cunningly and slily pretends to look upon it as no other than a Casualty, the misfortune of War, saying with himself, that such chances will come; and bid the Messenger tell Joab that there was no reason why he should be troubled or con∣cern'd at the Death of Ʋriah; for there was no saving any mans life in Battel, none could be pri∣viledg'd from Death in Warlike Encounters; and that the Arrows or Bullets made no distinction, and that all are alike liable to de∣struction, and that Ʋriah might

as well fall and be slain as any other in the Army; which is the sence of those very words which David caus'd to be return'd to Joab, in the 25. ver. of the foregoing Chapter. Then David said unto the Messen∣ger, Thus shalt thou say unto Joab, Let not this thing displease thee: For the Sword devoureth one as well as another. And lastly, When David had thus dispatcht and caus'd the Innocent Husband to be made away, he then takes the guilty Wife into his possession and marries her, and expects to live many happy and pleasant days in mutual endearments. But though David thought that the marrying her would legitimate their love, and take off the old scandal of their former Embraces, yet it was an act highly offensive to God, and is so exprest in the last v. of the Chap∣ter, And when the mourning was past, David sent and fet her to his House and she became his Wife, and bare him a Son; but the thing which

David had done displeased the Lord.

But then notwithstanding that David had committed those two horid sins of Adultery and Murder, yet he had not any true sense and feeling of his guilt, nor that remorse of Conscience which he should have had for sins of that Crimson die; but he rubs on a considerable time, with∣out any regret or sign of repentance: which insensibility and hardness of heart we may justly ascribe to his living in ease, and enjoying the Charms of Bathsheba's Beauty, which at first inticed him to sin and after∣wards made him forget it, whilst his Soul was steep'd in pleasure and tri∣umphing in the injoyment of his new Spouse. But whilst David was in his Nuptial jollity, and swallowed up in fond Caresses and doting upon that Beauty which had formerly bewitcht him, God stirs up his Pro∣phet Nathan to give him some check and interruption in his solaces, by

propounding something that might bring his late horrid sins to his re∣membrance.

And accordingly the Prophet does his office, and propounds to him the Parable of the poor man with his lit∣tle Ewe-Lamb. How that this was his only Companion, his only Darling, his Bosom Friend, that he had no∣thing else to love and delight in, nor that he could call his own, but this one poor Innocent Creature; and yet there was a rich man which had a numerous Flock, and enough to make a Feast for any Friend or Stran∣ger whatsoever, and yet was guilty of so much incivility and injustice, as to take away this single Lamb from a poor man, with a pretence that he needed it to make an Entertainment, which he might have done without the least wrong or detriment to him∣self, as having such a number of his own, and so many which he might well have spar'd.

Which Parable was no sooner

propounded to David, but he resents the Act with a great deal of indig∣nation, and delivers his opinion a∣gainst him that should do such a fact, as an unpardonable offender, and that he was guilty of such a high piece of injustice, that he was not fit to live. For him that had enough of his own, and yet to invade the right and property of a poor man, and to rob him of his little All, was in Davids Judgment an unsufferable wrong and injury, and that he that did it, deserv'd nothing less than Death; for so are the words in the fifth ver. of this Chapter: And Da∣vids anger was greatly kindled a∣gainst the man. And he said to Na∣than, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall sure∣ly die. And he shall restore the Lamb fourfold because he did this thing, and because he had no pity: So just and severe was David in condemning the robbing of a poor man, and ta∣king away the small substance he had.

But then when the Prophet took upon him to make a nearer Repre∣sentation of the case, and to bring it home to himself, and point-blank to charge him with the like injustice which he had so severely condemned in another, saying, Thou art the man: We must needs think that David was much startled when the guilt recoil'd upon himself, and that his own Conscience made the re∣bound. But then when it was brought so close to him, that there was no avoiding his own self-Condemnati∣on, David presently makes an inge∣nuous Confession, saying, I have sinned against the Lord. And such we may observe are the mercies of God, that his pardon follows imme∣diately upon his Confession. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord hath also put away thy sin, thou shalt not die, in the 13. v. Howbeit, in the next v. says the Prophet, Because thou hast by this deed given great occasion to the Enemies of the Lord

to blaspheme, the Child also that is born unto thee shall surely dy. Where we may observe, that although God was pleased to grant him the greatest pardon of his life; yet he does not give him a general pardon from other Punishments, but assures him at the same time that he granted him his life, that he should have such a pu∣nishment wherein he might read the nature and deserts of his sins. The Child that is born unto thee shall surely die. From whence it may not be unuseful to observe, that God is pleased sometimes to lay the Punishment due to the Parents sin upon their Children, and so here David had sinned and the Child must die for it; which may be of great use and moment to make peo∣ple more wary and deliberate how they enter into the Holy State of Matrimony: For though it be a Di∣vine Institution, and ordained of God in Paradise, and the State of Mans Innocency, yet there may be

ways of unhallowing Marriage, and turning that into a sin which was at first ordained for the greatest Bles∣sing. For if only Interest, or Hu∣mour, or Lust, be the chief founda∣tion and ingredient of our Choice; or if some sinful pre-ingagement or lewd Amours make Marriage neces∣sary for the hiding our shame; or if any of these things do cause a Con∣tract, or make up the match, we may expect that God in justice may blast and curse the fruits of our Body for the sin of our Soul, and for the sins of our flesh too. An instance whereof we have in Gods decreeing the death of Davids Child; which though it was born in Marriage, yet God utterly dislik'd the Conjunction; the first occasion and grounds there∣of being laid in Adulterous Embra∣ces; David making no scruple to murder the Husband that he might obtain the Wife.

But when David heard that hea∣vy sentence against his Child, that

he should surely die for his sin, might not he have confest himself altoge∣ther in the fault, and desired to suffer wholly himself, and have said as in another Case, 1 Chron. 21. 17. It is I have sinned, and done evil indeed, but as for this Lamb, this Innocent Babe, what has it done? Let thy hand be upon me, or my Fa∣thers House, and not on this Child, that that should be plagued. I say, one would think that David should have set himself to deprecate Gods displeasure against his Child upon his account, and desired to have su∣stained the burthen of his own sin: But the sentence was gone out, and what was written was written, and there was no reversing the Decree. And therefore all they that intend to change their condition, and desire that they may leave their Inheritance to their Children, had best look to it, and have a care that they do not make Lust, or any sinful Pre-ingage∣ment, a Preamble and Introduction

to Marriage, for fear God disappoint them in their hopes and desires, and either write them Childless, or take away their Children in wrath for their folly and wickedness. For though God spared David, and gave him a grant of his own life, that he should not die; yet there is no begging the life of his Child, the Prophet reading its Destiny, the Child that is born shall surely die. So that for people to couple together in a scandalous and sinful way, and to make Lust the basis and founda∣tion of Marriage, is to murther their Children in the Womb, and in a manner to predestinate them to de∣struction.

But then when David heard that his Child should not live, but was under a sentence of Death, and that according to the words of the Pro∣phet it presently fell sick and was desperately ill, How then did he be∣have himself? Truly like a very kind and indulgent Father; for it was no

sooner struck with sickness but Da∣vid besought God for the Child, And David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the Earth, and the Elders of the House arose and went to him, to raise him up from the Earth, but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them, in the 16, and 17. v. of this Chapter. Here we see David in a sad and mournful posture, expressing all the sym∣ptoms and signs of a mighty sorrow, and being earnest in Prayer to God for it; which if all Parents would do the like upon the same occasion when their Children are sick, or any ways afflicted, they would find their Prayers to be a more efficacious way than all the Drugs of the Apotheca∣ry, or the numberless prescriptions of the Physicians for the recovery of their Children: For the effectual fervent Prayer of the Righteous a∣vaileth much.

But then we may consider, that David had great reason to bewail

the sickness of the Child, as first, being the effect and punishment of his sin, and secondly, upon the account of natural affection.

First, He had a great deal of rea∣son to grieve and be troubled at the sickness of his Child, it being sent as a punishment for his own personal sin; and therefore when he saw it in misery and pain, and great anguish, and considered that it suffered all this principally for his sake, that he had the greatest hand in bringing all this trouble and sorrow upon it, and that he was the great Actor in the Tragedy, and this his sin occa∣sion'd this great scene of sorrows: How could he do otherwise than lay the sickness of it to heart, and take on bitterly, to think that by the mur∣der of Ʋriah he had caus'd the Death of his Child, and that by committing folly with Bathsheba, he had brought such an affliction upon their Issue? I say, such a considera∣tion must needs wound David to the

very heart, and cause him to make great Lamentations over the Child. And truly the same sorrows would become even the best Parents, and it might not be amiss for them to make some like Reflections. For the Parents are generally apt to impute the Distempers, the Sickness, the Death of their Children, either to want of due care in their Nurses, or to the badness of the Air, or the unwholesomness of the Season, or ill diet, or the irregular course of the Physician; I say, though we are apt to ascribe the sickness and Death of our Children to these outward and secondary Causes, yet we should do well to suspect our sins as the cause of their misery and sufferings, and to believe that there is something more than ordinary in the afflictions of such harmless and innocent Creatures. Surely the Parents have sin'd though these poor Lambs suffer, and there∣fore it is good and convenient that all Parents do examine themselves,

and see whether they need go any further than themselves to find out the true cause and original of those many weaknesses and distempers which they see in their Children, and for which they seem so much con∣cern'd and troubled. How mightily are some Parents troubled to see their Children grow crooked and deform'd, and yet little consider that possibly their Children are the un∣handsomer for their being so proud of themselves, and glorying in their Beauty; others are griev'd to see their Children prove such Punies, so feeble and infirm, and of such a weak Constitution, and do not re∣flect upon the debaucheries of their life, and how they have lost their strength in Dalilahs Lap. And it is a general complaint and observation that every Age declines more and more in strength and virility, and that the latter Generation of men are dwindled almost into Pigmies in com∣parison of what they were formerly,

and yet men do little consider, that Luxury and riotous Living may be assigned as the grand Causes and Rea∣sons of this great Degeneracy. And we also see that new and strange Dis∣eases do creep up daily and multi∣ply and invade humane Bodies, and yet we seldom impute these decays and breakings of nature to the vices of our Progenitors.

Whereas we have just reason to grieve at the sight of those many Diseases which attend our Children, and those great infirmities which they often labour under, and the more reason to be humbled when we re∣flect upon our selves as the Authors of them. The truth is, we have laid a train of mischiefs in our Bodies by our Vices, which will certainly ru∣ine and blow up our Children; we have Created Diseases in our Bodies by trespassing too much upon na∣ture, and offering great violencies to our Constitution; we have bro∣ken and shattered our Bodies by

great excess, by hard and unseason∣able Drinkings, and that may be one reason why we deliver down such a weak and crasie Progeny. We have turn'd our Bodies into Bogs of un∣cleanness and putrefaction, by our lust and wantonness, and that may be a very proper reason why our Children carry about them such an Hospital of Diseases. We have made our Bodies Sepulchres and burying places of Wine, and that may be another reason why our Children become Corpses so soon, and go so early to their Graves; we eat and drink destruction to our Children by our Gluttony and Drunkenness, we dig their Graves as well as our own with our Teeth, and by swallowing down over-much, we prepare them for the devoration of the Worms; and 'tis not any whit probable or likely, that our Children should prove sound and healthful, when we distemper our Bodies, and trea∣sure up Diseases. And we may con∣sider,

that we do propagate Diseases many times as well as our nature, and there are Diseases which (our Posterity find by woful experience) run in a blood; And therefore it is the duty of all Parents who de∣sire the good of their Posterity, and have a regard to the welfare and happiness of their Children, to be very strict and punctual in observing the Rules of temperance and sobrie∣ty, and in keeping their Bodies pure and undefil'd; forasmuch as by a vicious and debaucht life we store up Diseases for Posterity, and trans∣mit great evils to our Generation. For 'tis certain, that by great ex∣cesses and impure mixtures we do corrupt our bloud, and consequent∣ly must convey a taint to our Off∣spring, and a rotten Father seldom produces any other than a Consump∣tive Child; and besides, our Vices are as communicable to our Children as our Diseases, and who knows but that God might determine to take

away Davids Child for this very reason, lest he should Patrissare take after his Father, he being the Child of an Incontinent Father, and the Issue of such unhallowed Embraces. And therefore when David was de∣voting his Enemies, he makes this one of his dreadful Curses, Let the iniquity of his Father be re∣membred with the Lord, and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out, in the 119. Ps. and 14. v. And truly I fear that there are too many ungodly Fathers and Mothers in the World, whose wickedness and folly is such, as that their Children suffer for it deeply, being cover'd with Sores and Boils, and having such Diseases breaking forth as are plain marks and tokens of their Parents sins. God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children, and not suffering the iniquity of the Fa∣ther to be conceal'd, nor the sin of the Mother to be blotted out. And therefore those Parents that are con∣scious

to themselves of any such great and foul sin as Davids was, have very great reason to lament the Diseases and Death of their Children, when they consider, that they themselves were the great Instruments of bring∣ing all those miseries upon their Children, and that their sins have had the greatest hand in their de∣struction. And 'tis very well worth our observation, that in the first Age of the World it was never seen that the Son died before the Father, but the oldest always went first: But then when the wickedness of men grew great, and their Pride so great that they were too high for their Station, and would needs be building Castles in the Air, and climbing up to the Battlements of Heaven, it hapned presently afterwards that Terahs Son died before his Father, and there is a special note and mark set upon it as a kind of wonder, in the 9. of Ge∣nesis and 28. v. And Haran died before his Father Terah in the Land

of his Nativity. From whence we may observe, that the wickedness of a Father is enough to alter the course of nature, and to shorten his Childrens days, and to accelerate their Death, and bring them to the dust before their time. And thus I have been somewhat long on this Argument, that I might represent to you the danger of a sinning Father and Mother, and what a fatal mis∣chief they do their Children by their wickedness, in that they bring a Curse upon their Family, and by their sin occasion the Death and ruin of an Innocent Child; as is clear and manifest in this one instance of Davids Child being taken away for the sin of his Father. And we may also remember what a greivous Curse God entailed upon old Eli's Family and Posterity, that they should die in the Flower of their Age, and be cut off in their very prime, and that chiefly upon the account of old Eli. And therefore Parents

had need take a care to please God, and that they do commit no great offence, and to keep from great transgressions, that so their Children may not repent that ever they were born of them, and suffer sadly for their miscarriages. And indeed all Parents that desire it should be well with their Children, and that they should live long and see good days, are concern'd to live a pure and un∣spotted life, to possess their Vessels in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of Concupisence, otherwise they may bring great miseries upon their Children, and perhaps a sud∣den Death; and if they are resolv'd to continue their debaucheries and lewd Amours, they had even as good strangle their Children when they are newly born, and it may be a mercy to tear them in pieces as Medea did her Brother Absyrtus, rather than they should live to in∣herit their Phthisicks, Consumptions, and loathsome Diseases, and to be

plagu'd all their life long with the miserable effects of their Parents sins. And truly all vitious and un∣godly Parents have the same grounds that David had to lament over their Children when they shall see them sick of their Diseases, consuming with their Lusts, and expiring un∣der the curse of their sins. And there∣fore if Parents would but take care to live better, and more vertuously, possibly their Children would not prove so sickly, and might live lon∣ger; for 'tis certain, that Davids Child was sick, and died so soon, for the wickedness of the Father.

Secondly, Davids great grief and mourning for his Child, during the time of its sickness, was very just and reasonable upon another ac∣count, as being an expression of humanity, and the result of a natu∣ral affection.

For our Religion has not like the Stoick seal'd up the fountain of tears, and wip'd them away from our eyes,

whilst we are in this bitter Achor and Valley of tears; but has given us liberty to vent our sorrows, and ease the inward griefs of our mind in a reasonable measure, according to the proportions of humanity, and so far as is consistent with, and not con∣tradictory to our Christian hope; and therefore as to grieve immoderately is unlike a Christian, so not to grieve at all is unlike a man: so that Da∣vids sorrowing for his Child when he saw it in pain and anguish, was but a reasonable passion, becoming him as a man, in sympathizing with the sufferings of humane nature, and much more becoming him as he stood in the relation of a Father, whose Bowels, if he had any, must needs move and yearn over a sick and languishing Child. And there∣fore it was no such real matter of wonder, as the Spectators of Davids sorrows thought it, to see him in∣volv'd in tears, and making his Bed on the ground, and acting the part

of a true Mourner, whilst his Child was alive; for he saw it restless, and tumbling up and down for ease, and could find none; he saw it in great pain and anguish, and that there was no helping of it; he saw that Phy∣sicians were of no value, and all they could do could do no good; he saw the Child lie panting and heaving, and bemoaning it self with sighs and groans that were unutterable; he saw it in sore conflicts and strugling for life, and in the pangs and Agonies of Death; and how could a Father forbear weeping and making great Lamentations over a Child in such a deplorable and sad condition? He saw also the Mother wringing of her hands, and beating her Breast, and with floods of tears running down her Cheeks, and crying out, What shall I do for my Child? Lord spare my Child, Lord be merciful to my Child: He saw likewise the Atten∣dants that stood about not well able to endure the room, for the hollow

sighs and sobs, and the piercing groans of a Child that was drawing on, and breathing out its last. And lastly, he saw the servants of his House very much clouded, and hang∣ing down, and going mourning and heavily, & quis talia fando, tem∣peret à lachrymis? Who can possi∣bly forbear weeping almost at the re∣hearsal of such a large scene of sor∣rows? How could a Father restrain his tears when he beheld his own flesh and blood, and Bone of his Bone, to be in such great affliction? How could he endure to see his own Bowels torn from him without a deep and sorrowful resentment? How could he look upon a Child, an Innocent Child, rowling about in so much pain and torment, with∣out being 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, heavy and sorrowful, even to Death? Would it not melt a heart of stone, and draw tears from a marble to behold such a spectacle of pain and misery? And therefore Davids taking on so

heavily for his Child in the time of its sickness, was very reasonable and justifiable too; forasmuch as tears are the natural tribute which we pay to the sufferings of Mankind, and much more do we owe them to our Friends and Relations, and our dear Children, and such as are part of our selves.

But then, if David was such a man of sorrows, and took on so grievously for his Child in the time of its sickness, and whilst it was yet alive, surely we may expect to find him in a desperate condition and rea∣dy to sink into the Grave with it, when he heard of its departure. Certainly, he that was so much trou∣bled to see his Child in pain, must be in the greatest Agonies of sorrow when he hears it is dead. He that could not endure to see it in misery, how will he bear the loss of it? He that was ready to kill himself with grief for his Child when he was sick, surely cannot live when he is dead

and gone, and past all recovery. This was that indeed which his Ser∣vants, and all that were about him expected. They supposed, seeing their Master had laid the sickness of the Child so much to heart, that he would be in strange confusions, and refuse to be comforted when he heard of its Death. But there was no such thing, the Scene is much al∣tered and chang'd, and the expecta∣tion of his servants is much deceived: for instead of extream mourning for the Child when it was dead, he be∣gins to revive and take heart, and falls to his meat, and takes those re∣freshments which he had lately re∣fus'd. Which action and carriage of David shew'd very strange and a wonder to his Servants in the 21. v. But he presently removes the won∣der, and tells them the reason why he mourn'd no longer, but rather rejoyced at the news of the Childs Death. And he said, While the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept,

for I said, Who can tell, whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live? but now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him but he shall not return to me.

In which expressions David does signify and declare the reasons why his carriage upon the Death of his Child differ'd so much from what it was when it was sick, and yet alive. For I said, who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live? that is, though the Child be desperately ill and past all hopes as to out∣ward appearance, yet who knows but God may hear my Prayers for him, if they be made with true fer∣vour and devotion, with zeal and integrity? Who can tell but upon my humble Petition and earnest In∣tercession for the Child, God may spare him to me, and give a fur∣ther grant of his life, and recal the

black Sentence and Warrant for his Death, if there be such a due appli∣cation made to him? For whilst there is life there is hopes, and there is mercy always with God, that he may be feared and supplicated unto, and therefore it may be expedient and useful to continue my Prayers and to proceed in my penitential sorrows. And thus did David argue the reasonableness of his sorrowing and humbling himself before God for the Child whilst it was yet alive.

And truly it would be an excellent and laudable thing in all Parents to follow this Example of David, so as to betake themselves to Prayer, and to use the deepest humiliation when their Relations and Children happen to be under the rod and hand of an afflicting Providence; for there is no such effectual means for their re∣covery as a hearty and sincere Pray∣er. For the effectual fervent Prayer of the righteous availeth much, saith

St. James in the 5. c. and 16. v. There is more vertue and efficacy in Prayer than we are ready to believe, and they have a more soveraign power to cure all maladies than the best pre∣scriptions: This is the Panaceavera, and the great Catholicon, surpassing all those of humane Art and Inven∣tion, which some have so vainly boasted to find out. Prayer is the U∣niversal Remedy, and has perform'd greater Cures, and greater Recove∣ries, and done greater wonders than all the Elixirs, or Proprietates, or Nostrums of the most skilful and renown'd Physicians. It was Prayer that restored Hezekiah from a dan∣gerous sickness, and prolong'd his Days; it was Prayer which suppor∣ted David under all his troubles, and gave him ease in his greatest extre∣mities; it was Prayer that opened the eyes of the blind, and ejected the Devils, and did the most glori∣ous things to all Admiration: and therefore we must apply our selves

to God, and depend upon our Pray∣ers as the most proper and specifick remedy in afflictions. We must be fervent, and frequent, and impor∣tunate in Prayers to God on the be∣half of our Friends and Relations, and who can tell whether God will be gracious to us that our Friends may live.

But then may some reply and say, it was in vain for David to use Prayer or any other means; it was to no purpose for him to expect the recovery of his Child, or that God should answer him though he pray'd never so much. For he knew that God had decreed the Death of his Child, and told him in as plain words as could be, by his Prophet, that the Child should surely die; and why then should David flatter him∣self so as to imagine that he could do the Child any good by his Prayers, or prevail with God for his Reco∣very? Why should he use that du∣bious Language, as, who can tell,

'tis possible, or it may be that the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live? Why should he stand doubting or supposing a possibility of a thing, when God had positively declared the contrary?

To which I Answer, That God declared by his Prophet Jonah, the destruction of the Ninevites, and prefixt the time to just forty days, and this was declared with as great posi∣tiveness as the Death of Davids Child by the Prophet Nathan, and the Prophet Jonah try'd and said, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown, in the 3. of Jonah and 4. v. and yet after the delivery and promulgation of this sentence, the Ninevites did not despond, or ut∣terly despair of Gods mercy, but fell to repentance and humbling them∣selves, and put the success to the same venture that David did, and much in the same Language, saying in the 9. v. Who can tell if God will return and repent, and turn away from his

fierce anger, that we perish not? And what was the Issue of their Re∣pentance and Humiliation, and using the best means they could to divert Gods Judgments? Why the Issue was, that by their Repentance they stav'd off the judgment and put it back, as we may see in the 10. and last ver. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil that he had said, that he would do unto them, and did it not. And so in the 20. Ch. of the 2. of Kings, God ordered the Prophet Isaiah to go and carry to Hezekiah the same message of Death, and to acquaint him that he must expect no other than Death. Thus saith the Lord, Set thine House in order, for thou shalt die, and not live: Could any thing be more absolute and positive than these words? and yet Hezekiah instead of melancholizing himself with the thoughts of Death, or ex∣pecting it every hour, turned his

face to the Wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying, I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight: and Hezekiah wept sore, in the 3. ver. And what good, will you say, could Hezekiah's praying, and weeping, and appealing to the Righteousness of his life do him? Could that or any thing else save him and prevent his dying, when God had so solemnly Decreed? yes truly his Prayer and Repentance did him so much good, as to prevail with God to grant him a longer Lease of his life; and or∣dered the same Prophet that had just now told him of his Death, to re∣turn forthwith and acquaint him also that he had reverst the fatal sen∣tence: Turn again, and tell Heze∣kiah the Captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy Father, I have heard thy Prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I

will heal thee; on the third day thou shalt go up unto the House of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years. What then shall we say, that there is any change in the Divine Decrees, or any incon∣stancy in God, or that he is worse than his word, when he thus posi∣tively denounces judgment, and yet suspends it? God forbid, says the A∣postle, yea let God be true, but eve∣ry man a lyar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings. And therefore for the clear∣ing of God from all imputation of falshood or mutability in these in∣stances of his judgments denounced against sinners without any actual execution, we are to understand that those threatnings of God in Scripture, which run in an absolute form, have a condition imply'd, that is, Nine∣veh shall be destroyed, and Heze∣kiah shall die except they repent: So that God does still reserve a pow∣er of revocation, and puts in a con∣ditional

clause of repentance, which though it be not exprest, yet is al∣ways to be understood; and there∣fore where Gods threatnings of death and destruction seem most perempto∣ry and final, we are yet to attempt the diverting and preventing them by our Prayers and repentance; we are to use the means, and as we say, leave the success to God: For who knows but the Lord may be gracious? But if God will not hear our Pray∣ers, nor accept our Repentance, as he did neither in the present Case of Davids Child; yet we are to use the most proper means, and to try all the ways imaginable to pacify Gods anger, and to appease his wrath, and still to go on praying and repenting as David did. We are not to despond of mercy, or to despair of success, but at the very last push, and the utmost extremity of afflicti∣on, to say, who can tell but the Lord will be gracious?

And thus I have delivered to you

the just reasons why David mourn'd so exceedingly for his Child when it lay upon a Bed of sickness, and lan∣guishing: As first, considering that his own sin was the chief and decla∣red cause of his Childs grievous and desperate sickness; and secondly, upon the account of that natural af∣fection which is in all Parents to∣ward their Children, which moves their bowels to pity and bewail them when they are in misery and distress.

But then the great wonder is, that the Father which was so much con∣cern'd and deeply immerst in sorrow for the sickness of his Child, should give over mourning upon the death and loss of it; that his sorrow should expire and be at an end as soon as the Child was departed, and had gi∣ven up the Ghost. But now he is dead, why should I fast? Why should I trouble and grieve my self any longer? But how oddly and strangely, may some say, doth this

look in a Father, to dry his Eyes, and clear up his Countenance pre∣sently upon the death and loss of his Child? Is not this a thing out of course, and a very strange temper, to sorrow so much for the Child when it was sick, and to cease sor∣rowing when it was absolutely dead and gone? Surely, this giving over mourning at the death of so near and dear a Relation as a Child, must needs proceed fromhard-heartedness, or the want of natural affection and of common humanity.

But then we may observe, that David both to excuse and justifie his not mourning for the Death of his Child, nor taking on so grie∣vously as he did before, alledges these good and substantial reasons, as first, The consideration of the necessity of his own dying; and secondly, The impossibility of his Childs coming to life again. And we may also sup∣pose that he had some further consi∣derations at that time, which helpt

to allay and silence his sorrows, as namely First, the consideration of the Childs dying in its Age of Inno∣cency. Secondly, That it was gone out of a wicked and troublesome World. Thirdly, That it was freed from those pains, and sicknesses, and diseases, which are incident to this mortal condition. Fourthly, That it was released from those pains and miseries which it underwent: And fifthly, That it was the will of God it should be so. And it is but very reasonable to imagine, that all these considerations, though not verbally exprest, might occur to Davids mind, or any mans else upon the like emergency.

I begin with the first considerati∣on that put a stop to Davids sorrow∣ing for the loss of his Child, and that was the necessity of his own dying. Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him. David considered that Death was common to all, and that 'tis appointed for all men once

to die: What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? in the 89. Ps. and 48. v. And I know, says Job, that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the House appointed for all the living; and so David was convinced that he must as surely die as he was then alive, and that life is but a short preamble to death, and why then should he grieve and tor∣ment himself for the loss of his Child, when nothing had hapned to that but what must also happen to him∣self and to all men living? For he was only gone the way of all flesh, and had paid that debt to Nature, which every one must do at one time or other, sooner or later. His Child indeed was dead, but that was but a common, natural and un∣avoidable thing, and the beaten road to the Grave, and the usual way of going out of the World. He considered wisely with himself that his Child was only gone before him, and that he must prepare to follow;

that his death indeed was somewhat early and immature and sooner than ordinary; but the Father must not stay long behind. He saw that some∣times the buds and blossoms were nipt and fell to the ground, and that ripe fruit would certainly drop off; He observed that sometimes the Lambs went to the slaughter, and that there was no escaping for the old Sheep; And therefore it was in vain to be troubled at a thing which was past and gone and could not be helpt, and which all must submit to, young and old, the Father as well as the Child.

And what though it was a Prince∣ly Babe, and Heir to a Crown, and if it had liv'd might have been va∣lued at as great a rate as his Father, worth ten thousand of the ordinary sort of people; yet Death was no respecter of persons, makes no di∣stinction, and takes the ignoble and noble, the Prince and the Peasant, and sweeps away all alike; 'tis not a

Crown or a great Inheritance that will purchase life, or deliver from Death; 'tis not a high descent or being of the Royal Blood, that will priviledge or exempt from the Grave. But David himself must surrender up and lay down his Scepter at the summons of the King of Terrours, which had so lately cut off and pre∣vented his Sons Inheriting the Fa∣thers Glory; the branch is now lopt off, and ere long the root will be ta∣ken up and carried away. And therefore 'tis not long, says David, before I shall go to the same place, and be laid equal with my Child in the dust. He has only made the first han∣cel of my Tomb, and taken the first possession of my Grave. He has had the misfortune, or rather priviledge, to go before me, but I am going apace to meet him. He was snatcht away betimes, and I only wait Gods leisure, and look when my change will come, and expect every day to be called away; and therefore I do

not think it reasonable to imbitter this short life, or to make my self uneasy and uncomfortable the rest of my days, by a great and violent sorrow for the loss of my Child; when I know that I have not much longer to live, and that the days of my Pilgrimage will shortly be at an end, and that his condition will shortly be mine, and we shall both meet together in the Grave, and be fellow Lodgers in the Dust, and sleep together in the same Chambers of Darkness; and therefore, says Da∣vid, why should I fast? why should I macerate and wast my self? why should I grieve and pine away? why should I go and throw away my life in sorrowing for the Death of my Child, when I know that all the sorrow in the World will do no good? and that my Child has passed those Gates of Death, which I my self must after a little while strive and struggle to get thorough, and that he is now in his Grave out of which I cannot keep

long; and why then should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not re∣turn to me.

But he shall not return to me. That's another Consideration which might well serve to pacify Davids sorrow and discontent at the loss of his Child; namely, the impossibility of its coming to life again, or re∣turning to the same condition as for∣merly. I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

Death is that which puts a perfect and absolute end to this present life, and when we are committed to the Dust and laid up in the Grave, there is no breaking forth, no expecting our liberty or enlargement till the day of the general Resurrection. We are Prisoners of hope, sayes the Pro∣phet, that is, though we have a Pro∣mise and assurance of our rising a∣gain, and being delivered from the Grave, yet still we are Prisoners till the time of our Redemption comes,

and consequently must remain in hold, and under the strict custody and durance of the Grave. Death is a total privation of life, and à tota∣li Privatione ad habitum non da∣tur regressus, our Philosophy tells us, that is, though it be possible to recover the sight when the Organ of the Eye is only inflam'd or distem∣per'd, or grown over with a film; yet when a man is stark blind, and his Eyes are dropt out of his Head, then such a recovery is utterly im∣possible: and so Death being a to∣tal privation of motion, sensation, and all the acts of the animal life, there is no returning after that has once pass'd upon us, to any such vital ope∣rations, we are, says the Prophet Samuel, 2 Sam. 14. and 14. ver. as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, that is, as Water spilt upon the ground presently vanishes out of sight, and sinks into the Earth, and by the diffluence of its parts is so

disperst and wasted that there is no gathering it up again in the same quantity that it fell; so Death cau∣ses such a dissolution of the parts of our Bodies, that there is no reuniting them in the same manner, or forming them into the same orderly lively Fa∣brick by all the power and art in the World. Can these dry bones live, says the Prophet, is a Question that might very well be askt, as being a thing almost incredible, but that no∣thing is impossible with God. But then how is it that these dry bones will live? surely not in the same way as formerly, nor can they be enli∣vened by any humane power or Art, but they shall be quickned by a miraculous power, by the same power which raised Jesus from the Dead; but at present, during the time and reign of mortality, they must remain rotten, and shatter'd, and liveless, and only in a possibility to return to life by the wonderful power of God in the Morning of

the Resurrection. And Job in the 24. c. and 14. v. asks much the same question, If a man die, shall he live again? where Job does not so much doubt or question the truth of a Re∣surrection, as puts it out of all doubt by so propounding it; if a man die, shall he live? yes, he shall, but not by any power of nature to restore it self, nor that there is any remains of spirit in man after death which can quicken into new life of its own accord, nor that there is any seed of immortality in humane Bodies, as some of the Jews did fondly con∣ceive, when they imputed the Re∣surrection to the vertue of a Worm in the back-bone which never dies: And therefore though we are to be∣lieve another life, yet we must be∣lieve it in another place; For when our life here is once expir'd, there is no return of it, till God breath into us a new spirit of life, and inspire us with new vigour and motion. And therefore pray'd in another place, that

God would continue his life a little longer upon Earth, as verily belie∣ving he should never see it any more when he had once left it; Spare me, O Lord, a little longer, before I go hence, and be no more seen, Ps. 39. and 13. v. Man, sayes Solomon, go∣eth to his long home, and the mourn∣ers go about the streets, long in∣deed, whence there will be no moving or stirring a foot till the great day of Judgment. And not improper to our purpose is that ob∣servation of the Fox in the Fable, who when he was much urg'd and importun'd to go and pay a Visit to the Lyon in the time of his sickness, and told, that his Company would be more useful and serviceable to the Lyon, in order to the helping him to make his will, as being one fa∣mous for his wisdom and sagacity; answered, by no means, for there was a great deal of danger in going to visit this King of Beasts; For he had observ'd a great resort to the Lyon,

but saw no marks or footsteps of any that ever return'd from him. Vesti∣gia nulla retrorsum; and so may we say, that we have known millions that have enter'd into the shades be∣low, but none that ever came back from thence; and therefore we find, that when Dives was in torment, and made this earnest request to Abra∣ham, that one might rise from the dead and inform his Brethren of the truth of Hell torments, and by such a wonderful information might scare them from doing any thing that might bring them thither; yet this request was denied him upon this account, Joh. 7. and 9. v. there being so great a publication of a fu∣ture State by Moses and the Prophets and other divine testimonies; and besides, Abraham told him, that be∣tween us and you there is a great Gulf fixed, which place is enough to evince the impossibility of a return to this World after Death; and therefore we imagin, that David at

the parting of his Child took his final leave of him, bidding him an Eter∣nal farewel, and an Everlasting good night. For he considered that there was no hopes of seeing him again under the same circumstances, or con∣versing with him in the flesh; and therefore having decently commit∣ted his Body to the ground, and laid him in the bosom of our common Mother Earth, and perhaps dropping a tear or two upon the Hearse, and besprinkling the Grave with tears, as our Saviour did Lazarus in testimo∣ny how much he lov'd him, he re∣tires from the Funeral with great So∣lemnity we may imagine, but with∣out any further Lamentations, say∣ing, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

But then perhaps several may be ready to tax this Discourse with im∣pertinency, and say, what needs there all this stir and ado to prove a

thing that never was gainsaid or contradicted? as namely, the impos∣sibility of the dead coming to life again, and rising out of their Graves to live anew in this World: who is so silly or credulous as to expect such a thing? or who would desire to see the Ghosts, or any representations of their Friends when they are dead and gone?

To which I answer, That I believe there is none so silly, or whimsical, or deeply melancholy, as to expect a return of their Friends and Relati∣ons from the Grave. But then peo∣ple make a great Argument against themselves, and do highly condemn themselves of the greatest folly in their inordinate sorrowings for the Dead. For why should they take on and weep so bitterly for the loss of a Child or Relation, when they be∣lieve no such thing as a return from Death? why do they wound them∣selves with such mighty and piercing sorrows for their Relations, when

they know they are dead and gone, and that there is no hopes of seeing them again as long as the World en∣dures? This indeed is their folly to grieve for an irrecoverable loss, and to weep incessantly at the remem∣brance of deceased Friends. For tis the vainest, idlest thing that can be, to mourn when all the mourning in the World will do no good, neither to us or our Friends; and therefore this consideration, that all our tears are in vain and ineffectual, and that they may be spent as well upon a dead Tree as a dead Child, and re∣cover one as soon as the other, may serve to suppress all the extravagant sorrowings of all persons for their Friends and Relations, and make them argue with themselves the un∣reasonableness of all such desperate mourning, saying with David, now they are dead why should we fast and take on so grievously, and re∣fuse to be comforted, as Rachel, be∣cause our Children or our Friends

are not? For to what purpose is all our weeping, and mourning, and casting down our selves? can we bring them back again? no, that's utterly impossible, we shall go to them very speedily, and follow them close into their Graves, but there is no expect∣ing to see them any more: they shall not return to us.

Thirdly, Another thing which might well stop Davids sorrowing for his Child, might be this Conside∣ration, That his Child died in its innocent time, and before it came to the Age of sinning.

For though it be a great happi∣ness to have our Children live and grow up to be Men and Women, to see them ripen to the perfect use of reason, and to arrive at years of dis∣cretion; though it be a singular comfort and honour to Parents to see their Children grow eminent for Piety and Wisdom, and to become the great Lights and Ornaments of their Generation; yet the great un∣happiness

in breeding up Children is this, that Parents are not sure of their Childrens Inclinations to ver∣tue. And they are not certain though they give them the best Edu∣cation in the World, but that they may make an ill use of it, and turn the edge of their wits against God and Vertue, and only prove more ingeniously wicked, and great Cri∣ticks in Debauchery. For good E∣ducation does not always and infal∣libly make good men; and though our Children are sometimes very hopeful when they are young, and give great presages and specimens of virtuous dispositions, yet their incli∣nations are as uncertain as wind, and as unstable as water in that slippery Age, and 'tis a thousand to one but that when they come from under the Discipline of the Rod and Ferula, and are left more to their own li∣berty, and have the reins laid loose upon their Necks; 'tis then, I say, very great odds, but they will prove

contrary to expectation, and the by∣ass of their inclinations be turn'd a wrong way. For whoever shall consider the flexibility of youth, and how easily it is seduced and led aside by bad Examples and great tempta∣tions, which do every where abound in the World, cannot but think it a Miracle of Grace for youth to keep upright and unspotted from the World. It may indeed much fortify and preserve youth against the As∣saults and flatteries of Vice, to be season'd with good and vertuous Principles: But if they are never so carefully Educated, and religiously brought up, yet when they come fresh and green into the World, they are ready to be bent any way, and most likely to lean to the wrong side, and to stand according to the bent of corrupt nature.

But questionless good Education will go a great way in making a good man, and has a great stroke and in∣fluence upon the succeeding part of

our life. But yet 'tis but a common supposition, that that Vertue which was so secure and flourishing when it was confin'd within Walls and out of the reach of temptations, may be in great hazard and danger when it comes abroad, and to live in the Air, and within the breath of temp∣tations. For a Cloyster may secure that Vertue which perhaps would be lost if it walkt at large, and a School may send forth a good Lad, which perhaps Liberty and Company may corrupt and spoil. So that there is no depending upon or assurance of our Childrens Vertue whilst they are young, and before they come to the Regions of Choice, and make some experiment of themselves, how tenacious they are of Vertue, and how much they can hold out against the great and suitable temptations that are in the World; and there∣fore we are very fond and foolish to promise to our selves great mat∣ters from our Children, or to build

over-much upon their future Ver∣tue, and to please our selves with thinking what rare men they will make, and what great Comforts they will prove to us; whereas we know not what great alterations time may produce, and what years may bring forth. For although we may dote upon our Children when they are young, as David did upon his Dar∣ling Adonijah, and applaud their Inclinations, yet they may get to head, and grow Masterless, and dis∣obedient and incorrigible as Adoni∣jah was, they may grow worse and worse as they grow older, and as Jacob said upon another account, may by their great undutifulness and ill behaviour bring down our gray hairs with sorrow to the Grave.

We are apt, too apt indeed to mutter and repine at the Providence of God when he takes away our Children when they are young, and of great hopes as we think and pre∣sume; but God knows what manner

of persons they might have been, if they had liv'd, whether they might have prov'd good or bad, a joy or grief unto us. What if these hope∣ful Children had liv'd to imbibe ill Principles, to scoff at Virtue, to de∣ride the Being of a God, and to make a mock of sin? what if they had liv'd to be profane and irreligious, and to prove such youths as we have some in these days, should we then have thought their life a Blessing, and not rather a Curse unto us? and who knows but there was a great mixture of mercy in Gods Judgment upon David, in taking away and bereaving him of his Child, lest he should have prov'd one of bad in∣clinations, as being sprung of a vi∣tious Stock, and as the vulgar Pro∣verb says, that which is bred in the bone will hardly ever out of the flesh.

We see how ill his other Children prov'd, Tamar was defil'd and a∣sham'd of her self; Amnon was

incestuous and brought a great stain upon his Family: and his Dearest Absolom was both a Murderer and a Rebel, and died in such a state of wickedness, that David was exceed∣ingly troubled at his going out of the World in such an impenitent condition, mightily deploring his untimely Death, and wishing if God had so pleas'd, that he had laid down his life in exchange for his Sons, speak∣ing it with the greatest ingeminati∣on, as a sign of the deepest sorrow, O my Son Absolom, my Son, my Son, would God I had died for thee, O Absolom, my Son, my Son. And if these Children of David prov'd so bad, who knows but the Child that died might have prov'd as bad as any of the rest in case it had liv'd? Ah Beloved, we know not what man∣ner of persons our Children will prove, what their qualities and con∣ditions may be, and therefore we know not well what we do when we murmur at Gods removing them

from us. And if we do but look into the Proverbs, we may be easily convinc't (and observe how we read there) that Children are not always such blessings that we should desire so much their living, for they may be Curses as well as Blessings to us, according as they shall prove. A wise Son maketh a glad Father, but a foolish Son is the heaviness of his Mother, Prov. 10. 1. and in the 23. of Prov. and 24. v. The Father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise Child shall have joy of him; and in the 17. ch. and 21. v. He that begetteth a Fool doth it to his sorrow, and the Fa∣ther of a Fool hath no joy; and in the 25. v. A foolish Son is a grief to his Father, and a bitterness to her that bare him. In all which ex∣pressions we may see, that a man is much happier in having no Children than such as are foolish and vitious; and that nothing can be a greater grief and dishonour to Parents, than

to have silly and wicked Children. What comfort is there in having such lewd and profane Sons as old Eli's, who brought a scandal upon their Father, and a Curse upon their Fa∣mily, the whole Generation? O•• what can be a greater grief to a Fa∣ther than to have such a Son as Jero∣boam the Son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin? that is, one that shal•• prove the pest of the Age, and the•• bane of Mankind? And therefor•• we need not be so greedy and desi∣rous of Children, or so loth to par•• with them when we have them, un∣less we could have a better prospect of their conditions, and assuredly knew that they would prove Com¦forts and Ornaments to us, by thei•• wisdom and good conversation. An•• therefore David might well comfor•• himself, and take heart after the lo•••• of his Child, to think that though he had lost a Child, yet it was a•• Innocent Child, one that had n•• great sin, if any to answer for, on••

that had not sullied its Soul with the least tincture of any actual sin or transgression, and that it went as pure out of the World as it came in∣to it; whereas if it had liv'd to ma∣turity, it might have been like the rest of the World, or died with some great sin upon it unrepented of, as well as some of his Children had done.

And truly the same consideration may well be made use of by all Pa∣rents, to bring them quietly to sustain the loss of their Children when they die in their nonage, and very young. And what can be a more comforta∣ble consideration, than for Parents under such losses, to think that their Childrens Virtue if they had liv'd, was very uncertain, and that Vice was the most likely to prevail? that sin reigned more in the World than goodness, that the greater part of the World was stark naught, and that but few continued in it but con∣tracted some spot or stain, and none

that was perfectly Innocent? And therefore it might be a mercy to their Children to be set out of the reach of sin and temptation, and to have such an early translation to Heaven, before they had done any thing to hazard their Salvation, or to forfeit the love of God and title to Eternal Life and Happiness. Well may Pa∣rents pronounce their Children bles∣sed when they die in such a state of Innocency. For of such, says our Saviour, is the Kingdom of Hea∣ven.

Fourthly, Another consideration which pacify'd Davids sorrows for the loss of his Child might very well be this, That it was remov'd from the great Evils and Calamity of the World.

This World (God knows) is but a troublesome place at the best to live in, and no man must think to go scot-free from troubles of one kind or other. The Thracians, as Ci∣cero reports out of Herodotus, were

wont to weep at the Birth and Na∣tivity of their Children, to think what a sad and troublesome Theatre they entered upon, and that they were born to know a great deal of sorrow and misery; but to rejoice at their departure and going off the Stage, to think that they then reti∣red from the distracting cares and in∣quietudes of a troublesome World, and were past the reach and grie∣vance of all misfortunes. This World is too low a Region to be free from storms and tempests, and there is no expecting a perfect serenity but a∣bove the Clouds; and there is no such happiness to be enjoy'd here as a freedom from all misery and trouble, he being the happiest man at present that meets with the least trouble or perplexity; and therefore no man of experience in the World needs to be told, that all here is Va∣nity and vexation of Spirit; and whoever shall consider the great changes of misery that are in the

World, from War to Pestilence, from Pestilence to Fire, from Fire to great Confusions which have hap∣ned, not only in the memory of many, but in our days, and within the compass of a few Years; and moreover, what great and terrible judgments are continually impend∣ing over our Heads, and full upon the Inhabitants of the Earth because their wickedness is great; and also the continual losses and crosses, the sorrows and disappointments which come of course, and happen accord∣ing to the mutable condition of things below. Whoever, I say, shall seriously consider this sad revolution and mixture of sorrows, cannot judge it in reason good being here, or look upon the World as a desirable place to live in, much less think his Chil∣dren or Relations the happier for being here. And therefore David might well think it unreasonable to mourn for the loss of his Child, when it was consider'd, that it was gone

out of a cross and troublesome World, where the highest and most advantageous condition (as himself had found by sad and woful experi∣ence) could not exempt a man from great Calamities, when he who was his Father and a King, was forc'd from his Throne, and put to his shifts, and driven from Post to Pil∣lar, and perhaps was reduc'd to such great straits and extremities, that he would have exchang'd his condition with the meanest of his Subjects: How could he mourn for the Death of his Child when he considered that it was subject to the same Calamities as himself, and perhaps might prove every whit as unfortunate in the World if it had liv'd to succeed him, and might have Inherited his trou∣bles as well as his Crown? And therefore he lookt upon it as a kind Providence, that God had so hap∣pily prevented the Childs seeing any of those miseries which the Fa∣ther had felt, and thought it a sin∣gular

happiness and favour of Hea∣ven, that his Child went out of the World without knowing or being sensible what a trouble meant: whereas himself had been sufficiently tossed up and down upon the waves of affliction, and miserably broken with the cares and inquietudes of a troublesome World, and knew the World better than to esteem it the best or happiest place that his Child could be in. And truly all Parents would do well to consider how it has far'd with them, what usages and entertainment they have met with in the World, what reproaches and slanders, what losses and vex∣ations have faln to their share, and how troublesome a passage they have had; and I do not question, but that upon a serious reflexion upon the Calamities in their days, and their own private personal suf∣ferings, they will be ready to confess with old Jacob, that the days of their Pilgrimage have been few and

evil, and conclude them happiest that are out of it. And therefore all Parents have reason to cease mourn∣ing for the loss and death of their Children, upon the same considera∣tion which we may well suppose Da∣vid made use of, namely, that they are past the Waves of this trouble∣some World, and are taken away from the evil to come.

Fifthly, Another thing which might well prevent Davids extream sorrowing for the Death of his Child might be this consideration,

That it was freed from those sick∣nesses and diseases which attend this mortal life.

No doubt but David upon the loss of his Child, did consider what innumerable Diseases do continually accost and prey upon humane Bo∣dies, as first the many weaknesses and diseases that are natural to and at∣tend our Infancy and Childhood, as the great pain of breeding teeth, the being subject to the small Pox, to in∣gender

Worms, to fall into the Rick∣ets, and many other distempers which are common and peculiar to Childhood; besides the many dan∣gers that Children are apt to run in∣to, and the sad accidents that often do befal them, whereby they con∣tract either lameness or deformity, or come to an untimely end. And if we have the good fortune to get safe over our Childhood, and to come to riper years, yet as we grow strong, so our diseases are stronger, and in our youth our blood is hot and fea∣vourish and quickly in a flame, and our very strength of nature helps to augment our distempers, and makes them prove the more fatal to us; and when we come to the perfect state of Manhood, our very dependance and presumption upon the strength and benefit of nature, makes us bold with those Vices which oftentimes help to cut us off in the midst of our days, and then if we live to old Age, that is a Disease of it self, and no∣thing

but sorrow is our Portion, and the pains of Death lay hold on us: so that if we take a survey of our whole life, and of our passage from the Womb to the Tomb, we shall find that every stage and period of this mortal life is way-laid and beset with Death. And we know that there are certain dangerous seasons in the Age of Man which we call Climacterical Years, wherein our life is in great Controversy, and we have a push for it whether we shall live or die: And truly there are so many Diseases that are of course, and many more that are incidental and happen between our infancy and youth, that 'tis a great wonder that we ever live to be men, and much more that we should pass all those casualties and misfortunes which lie all along in our way to the Age of threescore Years and ten. And more∣over it may be considered what a great fatality Gods Judgments make, what a great depopulation and vast

havock of Mankind, the Plague, and Sword, and Famine do make; and that when these come they sweep away Millions as with the Besom of Destruction.

But then secondly, If we do fur∣ther observe how many sorts and kinds of Diseases there are in the World, how that new Diseases daily start up, and that old ones so vary and alter in their circumstances, and contract such strange degrees of ma∣lignity, that they become new too; how also that some Diseases are acute, others Chronical, and that some are rackt with the Stone, others tortured with the Gout; some are drown'd in a Dropsie, others burnt up with a Feavour; and that there is scarce a man but has a Disease pe∣culiar to himself, and proper to his constitution, and dies something a several way from his fellow Mortals: I say, whoever shall make this obser∣vation of the great swarm and mul∣tiplicity of Diseases which assault

Mankind (and that whereas the Dis∣eases now mention'd do kill their thousands, so there is a Consumption which kills its ten thousands, and deserves the Name of Apollyon, the great Destroyer of Mankind) must needs grant that the life of man is in jeopardy every moment. And that he is obnoxious to a great deal of misery whilst he lives.

But if my Courage or your Hearts would serve you to go into the Hos∣pital, and there turn over the great Volume of Diseases, and see what huge havock they make; to behold how the Canker has par'd off the side of one mans Face, and rotted off a∣nothers Nose, and eaten out an Eye, and carried away a Limb; to see how the Palsy has mortified ano∣ther, and struck him half dead; and how many either by natural or viti∣ous Consumptions are turn'd into meer Skeletons and walking Ghosts, and are only the shadows of men: Here you will say are sad spectacles of

mortality, here are such sights of hu∣mane frailty, as are enough to make the hardest heart to bleed, and to squeeze tears from a stock. Who can forbear weeping and lamenting to see Man that is born of a Woman become the spoils of so many Disea∣ses, and to be Anatomized and Dis∣sected, even alive? Here then we may see the sad and dismal ruins of these fleshly Bodies, and what miser∣able Creatures we are when God is pleas'd to afflict, and to lay sore and grievous Diseases upon us. And tru∣ly we are all subject to various and manifold Diseases, which issue forth in effects according to their several kinds and qualities; the matter of most Diseases lies lodg'd in our na∣ture and brooding within us: and we have the unhappiness to inherit some Diseases by traduction from our Pa∣rents, and there are many more which are hatcht by our Vices, and prove the most deadly and mortife∣rous. Some Diseases are so favoura∣ble

as to carry off quietly and spee∣dily, and others are more cruel, and like the Tyrant multiply our Deaths, and kill us by piece-meals; and nothing is a truer observation than this, that we no sooner begin to live but we proceed to die, and are every day going forward and stepping towards the Grave. But then although life be a sweet and preci∣ous thing in it self, and it be natu∣ral for all men to desire to spin out the thread of life to the utmost length; yet God may send those Diseases upon us which may make us weary of our lives, and to wish for Death and the Grave; and so we find that Job was so pester'd with Diseases, that his Life was a burthen to him, and he does frequently and passionately beg of God to do him the favour to dispatch him, and put an end to his days, as we may see in the 6. ch. of Job and 8. v. O that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that

I long for! even that it would please God to destroy me, that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off; and in the 3. ch. and 20. v. He speaks much to the same purpose, Saying, Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bit∣ter in soul? Which long for death but it cometh not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures: Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave; and in the 7. ch. 3, 4, and 5. vers. He declares how uneasy and restless he was through the greatness and violence of his Diseases, and how severely he was handled: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appoin∣ted to me. When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? I am full of tossings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day. My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is bro∣ken and become loathsome: and in

the 13. ch. and 14. v. He professes that he had so little joy and comfort in his life, that he would esteem it a mercy to die, saying, My Soul chu∣seth Death, and strangling rather than life. Nay, he goes further, and says, that he was quite out of conceit with living, and would not be im∣mortal on Earth for never so much, they are his own words, I loath it, I would not live always, let me alone for my days are vanity; and in the 10. ch. and the 1. v. His afflicti∣ons seem to have been so great and lasting, that they almost wore out his patience, and he could not en∣dure them any longer; which makes him speak like a man in great extre∣mity and a desperate condition: Say∣ing, My soul is weary of my life; and so David in the 6. Ps. and 6. v. utters himself in the same manner, Saying, I am weary with my groan∣ings; And therefore David might well cease sorrowing for the loss of his Child, when he consider'd the

manifold Diseases that mankind is liable unto, and that it often hap∣pens, and that he himself had so ex∣perienc'd it, that men meet with such sorrows and afflictions that make them weary of the World, and exceedingly imbitter their lives, and why then should he be troubled at the death of his Child? and that it did not live to be in danger of enduring all the Diseases in the Bill of Morta∣lity? And how did he know but that if it had liv'd, it might have prov'd of a sickly and weak Con∣stitution, and perhaps might bring those Infirmities into the World with it as were past all Cure, and might be a sorrow to the Parents, and a misery to their Child as long as it liv'd. And besides, Children run many risques and hazards whilst they are young, and come oftentimes to great mischances; and either they contract a lameness by a fall, or lose one Eye or both by the small Pox, or are drown'd, or burnt, or kill'd un∣fortunately;

any of which would prove matter of greater sorrow to Parents than a bare natural Death. And therefore seeing God was plea∣sed to take it away so very young, and that it dropt off with its first sick∣ness, there was a great mixture of mercy in this sad Providence, and little reason to be griev'd at such an early Death, when it was so natural, and perhaps prevented the meeting many sad mischances, and a Troop of Diseases which are incident to this frail and perishing life. And truly all Parents have the same rea∣son (which we suppose David had) to comfort up themselves after the loss of their Children, when they die very young; as considering that an early death may prevent a miserable life; and that it is much better to die young; than to live longer and have such Diseases grow and hang upon us as shall make life a burthen to us. And indeed though we are extreamly desirous of living, and are

sad and melancholy when we think of dying; yet we may live so long as that we may have enough of it, and may meet with such sore Diseases as may rob us of all pleasure and comfort in living, and spoil our ta∣king any contentment in the greatest injoyments this World does afford us; we know how the case stood with Job, and how that afflictions crowded in so thick upon him, that as he often professes, they made him even weary of his life. And there is none of us that has any priviledge or exemption, or greater security from Diseases than Job, nor have we Bodies of Brass, or Sinews of Iron more than he, but we have Bodies subject to the same Infirmi∣ties, and liable to be invaded by the same Diseases, if God to make an ex∣periment of our patience shall think fit to handle us as severely as he did Job, and to inflict the same Diseases upon us: And therefore we need not so much desire long life and

length of days as commonly we do; Because it may so happen, that be∣fore we run out half our race, or come to the middle of our Course, besides the troubles that are from without, we may meet with such a numerous train of bodily afflictions, that may make us more covetous of death than ever we were of life, and we may live to know so much sor∣row and pain before we die, that like Job we may be ready to curse our Birth Day, and wish that we had never been born: And there∣fore we should not be so very un∣willing to depart and leave the World at any time, though never so soon; because we may suppose, that the longer we continue in it the worse it may be for us, and although we are in health at present, and en∣joy our selves finely, yet Diseases may within a little time overtake and grow upon us, which may make our life a perfect torment to us, and cause us to consume our days in mi∣sery.

To speak compendiously, all Parents and others have little reason to ingulph themselves in sorrows for the Death of their Friends and Re∣lations, and more especially if it be early and natural, because when they are taken away so soon they happi∣ly miss of those sore and grievous distempers which in running out the whole stage of life, do seize upon oftentimes, and render this present life extreamly bitter and unaccepta∣ble. And indeed what comfort is there to see our Friends often sick, or roaring with the Stone or the Gout, or some acute pain, or to have them of an ill habit of Body, or of a broken health, and to be ever crazy and lingring with some fixt and incurable Disease? What plea∣sure is it to see our Relations rotten and unsound, and patcht up with Medicines, and supported with the Arts of Physick, and kept alive by nice and superstitious observations of diet? or what delight can we take

in injoying our Friends when they cannot enjoy themselves? And what reason then have we to lay so much to heart the death of our Friends and Relations, and to pine away meerly for sorrow that they are gone? whereas they are now freed from all the sorrow and contagion of bodily distempers, and have esca∣ped those sore burthens which we are like to feel and suffer if we stay here: Methinks we should rather comfort our selves, as we may well suppose David did, to think that our Relations when they are dead and gone, are past the shock and fury of a Disease, that they have endured one brunt for all; that they have charg'd that Enemy home, which we so much fear and must ex∣pect every day to encounter withal: so that considering how we that are left behind are to run the Gantlet through Troops of sorrow, and to pass the Pikes of a thousand Disea∣ses, 'tis highly unreasonable to mourn

and sorrow for the dead, they being past all possibility of Diseases, and far removed from this Climate of Sickness and Death.

Sixthly, Another thing which might restrain Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child, might be this consideration: That it was re∣leas'd from the great pains and mi∣series which it lately felt and en∣dured.

'Tis certain and indubitable, that the Soul does not quit its Mansion of the Body without great strivings and reluctancy, and though it be consider'd that the Child was but in its Infancy, and newly in possession of life, and that the Soul and Body had contracted but a late acquain∣tance, and that the Friendship was very new; yet where there is such a strict Conjunction as there is be∣tween the Soul and the Body, though but for a moment of time, the sepa∣ration cannot be without great grief and sorrow; where there is such a

close union and intimacy, there is no parting without pain and trou∣ble; and consequently, though the Soul of the Child was now just en∣ter'd into its New Tenement, yet it was so firmly setled, and had taken that deep rooting, that it could not be remov'd or ejected out of posses∣sion without great disturbance. And therefore to see a Child strugling for life, and to have only breath enough to intitle it to life, could not but wonderfully affect and produce great Agonies of sorrows in the hearts of the Spectators. And we may ob∣serve, that men have naturally that compassion as to pity even a Brute when it lies in pain and misery, and look upon it as an act of mercy to dispatch it out of the way. And therefore David seeing his Child in that extream anguish and distress, in that sickness to Death, and that there was no way to ease and relieve it, could not but reflect upon it as a sin∣gular mercy of God to take away

the Child, and to put an end to such a painful and miserable life. David could not forbear weeping and sadly lamenting over his Child when he saw it in the pangs of Death, and in those frightful Convulsions which were precedaneous to its dissolution. But when it pleas'd God to seal up its breath, and to give it a happy Issue out of this troublesome World, then David began to be better sa∣tisfied, and to be somewhat com∣forted with the consideration that God had in mercy released his Child from that pain and misery which it lately underwent, and the sight whereof would have pierc'd the hardest heart living. So that all those that have the sad opportunity of standing by their Relations and Friends when they are upon their sick Beds, and in the approaches of Death, and there to observe what a tumult and commotion nature is in at that time, and with what pain and trouble the Soul and Body take

their leave one of the other, must needs conclude their parting and se∣paration to be a more dismal and amazing sight than a Divorce be∣tween the most desperate Lovers. Let us but be present with our Friends in the heat and rage of their Distemper, or in the ultimate efforts of life, and we shall then see a tre∣mendous and ghastly spectacle, which is hardly to be related without tears, and cannot be seen without horror and astonishment. O the hollow sighs, and the deep sobs and pierce∣ing groans of our dying Friends, which are enough to wound any heart living, and to strike that dread upon us, that the sound of their cries and groans shall never be for∣gotten, and can we pretend to pity them when we see them in so much anguish and distress, and in the depths of misery, and shall we so contra∣dict our pretences to sorrow, and our compassion for them in the bit∣terness of Death, as to be troubled

when they are out of misery, and to deplore their going to rest. Shall we weep and mourn to see our Friends upon the Rack, and in great torment, and shall we take on the more when they are past the sense and feeling of any pain? How can we reconcile this Posthumous Passi∣on to common reason? Or can we think to perswade people that we lov'd our Relations dearly, when they see us grieve when they were in mi∣sery, but to grieve more when they are stept into happiness? In a word, we may yield to the meltings of na∣ture, or the tenderness of our af∣fections, and gratify our compassions in mourning for our Friends when they are in great misery, and the Agonies of Death. For a compassio∣nate grief is both natural and reason∣able, and if we have any spark of good nature we cannot but be mol∣lify'd at the mournful accents of the most despicable Creature when 'tis in pain and great extremities. But

then to mourn excessively for our Friends when they are out of pain, and the bitterness of Death is past, is both unreasonable and unchristi∣an: unreasonable because they have endured and pass'd the worst, and are perfectly discharg'd from those troubles and sorrows which those that remain alive are subject unto; and 'tis unchristian, because it gives occasion to people to suspect our be∣lief of a Resurrection and a future Life; and that we are not really perswaded that our Friends are re∣moved for the better, and much for their advantage. And therefore the Apostle in the first to the Thessal. 4. ch. and 13. v. admonishes Chri∣stians not to grieve and take on for the dead as others which have no hope, lest they should by that means scandalize their Religion, and ren∣der their belief of a Resurrection suspected and dubitable: so that we are concern'd as Christians, and as we tender the reputation of our

Christian Faith, not to be lavish of our tears, nor over profuse in our expences of sorrow for the dead, lest we should be suspected of believing our Friends happier here than they will be hereafter. But we should rather in a manner rejoice at the de∣parture of those who have liv'd well and innocently, and die in the Lord: Forasmuch as the Apostle tells us they shall rest from their labours and have all tears wip't away from their Eyes, Revel. 7. 17. And we should as our Church wisely directs us in the of∣fice for the Burial of the dead, give hearty thanks to God that it hath pleased him to deliver our Dear Friends and Relations out of the mi∣series of this sinful World, which may furnish us with another consi∣deration that might possibly incur into Davids mind, and help to sus∣pend and allay his sorrowing for his dead Child, and that is this:

That it was remov'd far above the power of sin and temptation.

We at present, as the Apostle Paul complains, carry about us a Body of sin and death. We are subject to manifold sins and temptations, and have brought with us into the World those corruptions which in time will ripen into and sally forth in great actual transgressions. Job makes a kind of wonder at it, that any man should think he can be perfectly pure and innocent in this body of flesh: For what is man that he should be clean? or he that is born of a wo∣man that he should be righteous? Job 15. 14. and so David tells us, Psal. 51. 5. That sin is the Inheri∣tance of our Parents, that we are infected with it in the Womb, and that we are born with propensions to evil, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my Mo∣ther conceive me. So that the seeds of disobedience are lodged in our nature, and the ground-work of sin is laid deep within us, and there is nothing wanting but time and op∣portunity

to make it bring forth in abundance: So that when our Chil∣dren die very young, and go early to their Graves, we may comfort our selves with this consideration, that we lose them in good time, and before they have added any actual to original sin; and that if they had liv'd much longer they would have con∣tracted a new and further guilt, and perhaps have advanc'd in sin as they did in Years: for 'tis certain, that the strength of nature gives strength to our sins too, and 'tis only Age that qualifies and fits us for great and notorious wickedness. So that that sin which was only in Embryo in our infancy comes within a few years to a perfect shape, and our pro∣pensions to evil, in a small process of time are reduced to real and visible acts. My meaning is, that although there is a natural aptness and pro∣clivity in Mankind to sin and err from the Laws of our Maker, yet sin does lie hid and brooding in the

time of our infancy, and is only hatcht into perfection by the addi∣tion of longer time: and although we have all the principles of wick∣edness inherent in us at the very first moment of our Nativity; yet we are too impotent to commit evil, and to offend God at that rate, as when we come to a full stature in Years and knowledge. We may be full of bad inclinations when we are young and Children, but 'tis only Age that can make us capable of doing mis∣chief, and to be workers of iniquity, and we cannot so highly provoke God when we are ignorant and childish, and know nothing of him, as when we come to the perfect use of reason, and to know his will, and yet run Counter to it. And there∣fore the Death of our Children may be a happy prevention of their sin∣ing: and if they live so long as to receive the benefit of Baptism, and to be regenerate and born anew of Water and the Holy Ghost, and so

be made lively members of Christs Church, we are bound to thank God for the mercy of their Regene∣ration, and that they had their sins wash'd away in the laver of Holy Baptism; so as that they go much purer out of the World than they came into it: whereas if they had liv'd longer in the World they would have contracted a greater guilt, and had more sins to answer for; they would have been continually liable to temptations, and in danger of fal∣ling into great and grievous sins, and to be corrupted by the bad examples which abound in all places of the World. And therefore there is no reason why Parents should so much lament their Childrens leaving them so soon; if they do seriously consi∣der, that 'tis a naughty World we live in, and that mens love and pra∣ctice of wickedness is exceeding great, and that 'tis impossible to escape all the pollutions that are in it: and if they do further consider, how

much humane nature is tainted with original sin and corruption, which prompts us on to evil continually, and what a subtile and vigilant Ad∣versary we have, who is always seek∣ing to beguile and destroy us; and how thick set the World is with snares and temptations; I say, if this consideration did but enter into our minds, it would be of great force and power to asswage our Passion, and to allay our sorrow for the death of our Friends and Relations: it be∣ing a very comfortable thing to con∣template the happiness and privi∣ledge of those that have shook of the clogs and fetters of the flesh, and let fall their Bodies, the troublesome Mantles of their Souls, and are now expatiating in Regions of Bliss and Happiness, and live in the pure Ele∣ment of Goodness, and where 'tis impossible that any temptation should approach, or sin have any Dominion over them.

Lastly; Another thing which

might stop Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child, might be this consideration, that it was the will of God it should be so.

He considered that it was altoge∣ther foolish and in vain to enter into any controversie with God about his dealings with his Child, or to stand expostulating the justice of God in taking it away. For he was con∣vinc'd that Gods will ought to be a Law unto us, and that there is no need of disputing the Righteousness and Equity thereof, it being always rul'd and determin'd by his wisdom, and justice, and goodness. For though God be of an infinite and uncontroulable power, and can do whatsoever he pleases both in Hea∣ven and Earth; yet there is a Maxime in Theology as well as Policy, That the King of Heaven can do no wrong. It must be acknowledg'd by us all, that our life and being is the gift and blessing of God, and so is the life of our Children too;

and therefore when God does in mercy give us Children, so he may with justice take them away. For may not he dispose of his gifts, and do with his own as he pleases? God lent us Children for a little time on purpose to please us; shall we be troubled when he resumes them to himself, or griev'd when he requires them back? we are to observe, that there is a great difference between Gods way of disposing his gifts, and that of mens. For though it be common with men to make a Deed of Gift, and to transfer their own right to a thing wholly to another, so as to lose all propriety in it; yet God does not make the same dispo∣sition of his gifts in that absolute manner; but when he gives us Riches, or Honour, or Children, or any other gifts, he does not make over to us all the title to, and interest in them, but reserves to himself a power of Revocation, so as that he may demand them back at pleasure; he

only gives us the use and comfort of them for a time, but never parts with the propriety, or resigns up all his claim to them: And besides, we should consider, that although God does put those Children into our power, and under our jurisdiction, which he is pleas'd to give us; yet that Parents have not that absolute power over their Children that God has, nor are they wholly at their dis∣posal, as to the great Issues of Life and Death, which are only in Gods Hands. And therefore though we may look upon our Children as our own, as being flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, though we may appropriate them to our selves, and reckon we have the best title to them of all our Possessions; yet still God retains the supream right, and has the first and oldest title to them, and we are only deputed by God to be the Overseers and Guardians of our Children: and therefore as God is pleased to commit our Children to

our care for some time, yet when he does not like they should be any longer under our tuition, he does in mercy and kindness to them take them away; when he sees it not good for them to continue with us, he then to shew his Authority, re∣moves them from us, and calls them home. And therefore Parents would do well to consider, that God has more right to their Children than themselves, and that they are abso∣lutely at his disposal, but not at theirs, that they have not that power of Life and Death over their Chil∣dren which God has: And there∣fore Parents have no reason to be in that Hurricane and storm of Passion upon the loss of their Children, un∣less they are troubled that God should have his will more than they have theirs; unless they are grieved that God should take upon him to dispose of their Children without their consent and liking; which ar∣gues a great impiety of mind, as if

they thought that God was either unjust in taking away the Children from their right Owners, or unmer∣ciful in not sparing of their lives, which was a greater comfort to them than all other enjoyments; whereas it would be much better, and tend to hush and silence all the sorrows of Parents for the loss of their Chil∣dren, to consider, that they are but under-Proprietors of their Children, and that they came first from God, before they came to them; and that as God is the donour of them, so he may well be allow'd the dispo∣sal of them, whether for Life or Death. And besides, it should be consider'd, that Gods will is and ought to be supream, and Master of ours; and that we should patiently leave them to Gods will and plea∣sure, when he does not think fit to leave them to ours. It was an excel∣lent saying, and submissive speech of Jobs, ch. 1. 21. who when God was pleased to bereave him of all his

Children by violent and unnatural Deaths, and of all his Worldly goods too, yet submitted to his great mis∣fortunes with an invincible patience and mildness, saying, Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb, and na∣ked shall I return thither, the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord. Here is an Example beyond Example of Patience, and quiet sub∣mission to the will of God in one of the greatest and severest trials imaginable; here indeed is an Ex∣ample fit for our imitation, and should be drawn into practice upon the like occasion. And it would highly become Parents and others, and indeed is the duty of all to lay themselves at the will of God, and with all humble Prostrations resign up their wills to his, and to resign up their Children and Relations freely to him, who first gave them freely to them. And to say in like manner with Job, God has indeed

blessed us with Children, but has not thought fit to continue them to us: and though we could have been well content to have enjoy'd them, if God had so pleas'd; yet we are content to want them, being he has thought it better both for them and for us to take them away. The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Seneca will teach us otherwise in words to this pur∣pose, that we ought not to reckon all that we enjoy our own, or to look up∣on our Children as a sure Inheritance, and entailed upon us, but consider, that they are of the same uncertain hold and

tenure as other outward blessings are, that they are given us but for an uncertain time, and that we must not promise to our selves any long or certain enjoyment of them; if we are allow'd the use, and benefit, and comfort of our Children for a time, 'tis not fitting that we should mutter or think much to part with them when God demands his own, and requires back what he only com∣mitted to us by way of lone; but rather be in a readiness to part with our Children and all other blessings when God will not trust us with them any longer.

Having thus shew'd upon what considerations David might well cease sorrowing for his dead Child, and which may be of excellent use and service to support and comfort o∣thers under the like losses, and to prevent all excessive mourning for the Death of their Friends and Re∣lations, especially when they die young, I shall now winde up the

whole Discourse with a word or two,

First, By way of Reproof.

Secondly, By way of Exhortation.

First, By way of Reproof to all those that are apt to quarrel with Providence, and to entertain hard thoughts of God, as if he were either unjust or unmerciful when he takes away their nearest and dearest Rela∣tions from them; and do often in the bitterness of their Souls, and the great anguish of their spirits, charge God foolishly, and speak un∣advisedly with their lips, and think they do well (like Jonah) to fret against the Almighty, in that he deals with them after such a manner, and will not suffer them to enjoy the desire of their Eyes, and the joy of their Hearts, so long as they wish and desire. They assert with a great deal of sorrow, that their Soul was wrapt up in the life of such and such a Child, that it was an Absolom for its Beauty, and a Solomon for its

Wisdom, and a Moses for its meek∣ness and good nature; that it was very pregnant and a great Wit, and gave great and lively Specimens of future Vertue and Wisdom; and there∣fore for God to deprive them of a Child that had naturally such Charms, and whose vertuous temper and dis∣position did presage so much com∣fort to themselves, and so great a benefit to the World, must needs make deep and melancholy impres∣sions upon their Spirits, and put them into an extream Passion. And thus Parents and others are apt to clamour against and censure the dealings of an afflicting Providence, when it comes home to them, and touches them in part of themselves, and such as they profess to love as dearly as their own Souls: whereas 'tis an utter fault in them thus to re∣pine at the hand of God, and they know not what Spirit they are of when they fall into such fits of Pas∣sion, and paroxysms of discontent,

refusing like Rachel to be comforted, because their Children and Relations are not; and wish like Elijah in a pet, that God would take away their life too, for they are no bet∣ter than those that are gone before them. But is this like men or like Christians to be absorpt and swal∣lowed up in a vortex of sorrow, and to be carried away with such an Euroclydon and violent storm of Passion? O the great folly and wick∣edness that is in the hearts of men, thus to grumble at Providence, and to be so much out of humour as to fall sick as Ahab did for very vexa∣tion that we cannot enjoy what we have a mind to, and a great long∣ing to possess. So great and stupen∣dous is our stubborness and obsti∣nacy not to yield to Gods will nor submit to his pleasure, but to take on and rave like mad people, and to complain grievously like Laban, that we have lost our Gods, our greatest hopes and comforts, when

God has only taken away our Idols. But we had best have a care that we be not so very impatient and outragious when God takes away our Relations from us; and so cause and provoke him to write more bit∣ter things against us, and bereave us of all our Worldly Comforts, and of the light of his favour, and the supports of his Spirit, which would be the greatest and sorest loss that can possibly befal us.

Secondly, By way of Exhortation to Parents and all others who may be concern'd in the loss of Relations and Friends, that they would en∣deavour to compose themselves to a quiet, and humble, and patient submission to the will of God in the severest of his dispensations; that they would comport and demean themselves with that tem∣per and moderation at the Death of their Friends, as becomes Christi∣ans who profess a firm belief of a future Resurrection, and a future

life in glory; and that they would banish all unkind, and uncharita∣ble thoughts of God when he is pleased to take away their Darlings and Favourites, and quietly acquiesce in his Providence, and endeavour to believe, that what God doth is best both for themselves and their Rela∣tions, saying with all humility and submission of Soul, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.

Thirdly, It would be wisdom in all Parents and others to consider, that their Children and Friends are mortal, and of humane race, and that they are born in order to die. And so Seneca advises his Friend Marcia, not to grieve or take on desperately for the loss of her Son, but to consider, that mortality was an appendage to humane Nature, Et ex quo primum lucem vidit, iter mortis ingressus est; that he no sooner began to live but he began to die, and that life is a constant

journeying and properation to the Grave. And 'tis well worth our re∣membring what is reported of Anax∣agoras, that when he was warmly ingag'd in a Philosophical Disquisi∣tion, and word was brought unto him that his Son was dead, he did not seem in any disorder, or to be dis∣compos'd at the news, but went on with his Discourse very smoothly, and only made this reply, That he knew that he was the Father of one that was mortal. Anaxagorae inter fa∣miliares suos de natura rerum dis∣serenti, filii mortem nunciatam tradunt; nihil{que} aliud ab eo re∣sponsum, nisi, se illum genuisse mor∣talem. Cicero de Consola. And therefore all persons to prevent the being so much troubled and startled at the Death of their Relations, should often meditate on Death, and be frequently possess'd with thoughts of their own and others mortality; and when they live in a daily expe∣ctation of their own Death and those

that belong unto them, they can∣not be amaz'd at the early Death of their Relations, or sorely afflicted when it pleaseth God to take them away first. For the looking upon the life of their Relations to be al∣together as uncertain as their own, must needs make their death more tolerable, than when they reckon and depend upon their living; quae mul∣to antè praevisà sunt, languidius in∣currunt, sayes Seneca. When we think of a thing long before-hand, it loses of its terror, and we are not so much troubled at it when it actually comes. So that if we did but consider that our Children and Relations are as mortal as our selves, and that 'tis no rarity for them to die before us, we should not pro∣ceed to break our hearts with over∣much grief, or to bury our selves in sorrow at the death of our Relations, come it sooner or later. But as Se∣neca observes, In hoc omnes errore versamur, ut non putemus ad mor∣tem,

nisi senes inclinatosque jam urgere, cum illò infantia statim & juventa, omnis{que} aetas ferat; 'tis a general error, and popular to think that the Aged and the Decrepit must needs die first; whereas the youngest are as liable to Death as they, and are taken away every whit as soon. And again in the same Consolatory Discourse: Tot praeter Domum nostram ducuntur exequiae, de mor∣te non cogitamus, tot acerba funera. Nos togam nostrorum infantium, nos militiam & Paternae haeredita∣tis successionem animo agitamus. There are (sayes he) so many Fu∣nerals and spectacles of mortality pass by our doors every day, and we do not regard them, nor lay to heart this Death of others: But we are thinking to make our Children fine and great, and what great Heirs they will be after our decease: But we think of nothing less than our Childrens dying, which makes their death so very grievous and surpri∣zing

unto us: Whereas by a due premeditation on death, and fore∣stalling it in our thoughts, both our own death, and that of our Relati∣ons would become less terrible and astonishing, as being a thing which we every day expected and stood looking for.

Fourthly, It would be very rea∣sonable and prudential to command or check our passion in due time, and not to let it spin out to too great a length. For as Seneca tells Marcia, that our tears cannot al∣ways flow, nor our mourning last always. Dolorem dies consumit, quamvis contumacissimum, a little time, or a few days, will exhaust the Fountain of our tears, and drain it dry, and overcome the most obsti∣nate grief. And Cicero says the same thing. Quòd etiamsi nolis, tempore tamen ipso extenuatur & evanescit, that is, we must give over sorrow∣ing at last, whether we will or no, and when we have wept so long

that we can weep no more; and therefore 'tis a stark shame that our reason should not do that which a little time will effect; that it should not put a stop to our tears, which within a little while will dry up of themselves. Multum autem interest, utrum tibi permittas moerere, an imperes, says the same Seneca, 'tis more honourable to suppress our passions, than to let them run them∣selves out of breath and to sink of their own accord.

And in another place, he tells Marcia, that it is wisdom to hus∣band our tears well, and not to let them stream too plentifully, but to be sparing of them, and to reserve some against another time. Lachrymae nobis deerunt antequam dolendi causae. For if we live in the World, we shall meet with many occasions to weep and mourn, and shall never want matter of sorrow and trouble. And therefore we should make it evident by our ceasing to mourn for

the dead in just and convenient time, that our reason has that ascen∣dant over our Passion, as not to let it run too far, or spend it self quite at once, whereas there may be great reason and occasion for it at some other time.

Lastly, and to conclude all, Let none suspect that this Discourse had any aim to promote or introduce a Stoical Apathy among Christians, whose Religion is a compleat body of mercy, and a perfect systeme of tender-heartedness and compassions, and teaches men to be pitiful and compassionate and melting above the common standard of humanity. Let none, I say, so misconstrue it, as because it argues against excessive and immoderate mourning for the dead, that therefore it intends to harden mens hearts, and to bar them from paying a just tribute of tears and sorrow to the memory of their Deceased Friends; or because it de∣clares against effeminate weepings

and lamentations, that therefore it will not allow us the sense and feeling of men. Nec verò credi velim, sayes Cicero, me, quia dolori nimio re∣pugnem, idcirco dolorem omni ex parte improbare, omnes{que} illius ex animo filias evellendas existimare, &c. But our design is chiefly to perswade men to curb and moderate their Passions and sorrows for the Dead, by shewing, that if they would but listen to the Counsels and Dictates of reason, it would inform and convince them of the folly of grieving and afflicting themselves to no purpose, and when all the sor∣rowing in the World will do no good, Parcamus Lachrymis, sayes Seneca, nihil proficientibus; and also how contradictory it is to the Faith of a Christian to continue mourning for the Dead, as if they were irreversibly gone and lost to all intents and purposes of happiness, as if Death were an utter extinction and annihilation of their beings, and as

if there were no immortality after this short and fading life is ended. 'Tis true, that the Stoicks injoined their Disciples to dam up the cur∣rent of their natural affections and passions, and not to let them forth in the least degree upon any occa∣sion whatsoever. And this Apathy they pretended and boasted to be the aim and perfection of their Phi∣losophy; whereas the Christian Phi∣losophy is not near so rigid, but al∣lows us to give way to our passions in some measure, and upon just and solemn occasions. We read of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and how that the Death of the good King Josiah was solemniz'd with great mournings and lamentations, all Israel mourned for Josiah, and Ju∣dah lamented Josiah, 2 Chro. 35. 24. And that which doth more authorize our Mourning for our Friends, is the carriage and practice of those devout men in the Gospel, who car∣ried Stephen to his Burial, and made

great Lamentation over him, Acts 8. 2. Nay a further Confirmation of the lawfulness of mourning for our deceased Friends, is the Exam∣ple of our Saviour himself, who wept over Lazarus's Grave, as we may see John 11. 35. which the standers by made a great Argument of his love and concernment for the Death of Lazarus. And 'tis very well known that the Jews lookt upon tears and mourning to be so natural and proper at a Funeral, that they hired Women called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Jer. 9. 17. (and so had the Romans their Praeficae for the very same purpose,) to weep at Burials for the greater solemnity, so that rather than there should be any want of tears upon such sad occasions, they Celebrated the Obsequies of their Friends with a mercenary sorrow; and therefore it was a severe and unnatural Injun∣ction of Tiberius to charge the Friends and Relations of those per∣sons that he put to Death, not to

mourn for them, or so much as shed a tear at their Execution upon pain of his highest displeasure. Interdi∣ctum ne capite damnatos lugerent, Suetonius. Whereas our Religion does not require us to put off bow∣els of pity and compassion, as the Philosophy of the Stoicks, or the cruelty of the Tyrant did; but only prohibits us to pluck up the Sluces, or to open the Flood-gate of our Passions, so as to let them run with a mighty Torrent, and to over-flow the bounds of reason and modera∣tion. But then although we are per∣mitted by the Example of our Savi∣our to sympathize with the sufferings of humane nature, and to grieve according to the proportions of hu∣manity, for the loss of our Friends and Relations; yet we are to have a special care that our sorrows are not unreasonable or immoderate: for as no sorrow shews want of hu∣manity, so too much shews the want of Religion. For by our immode∣rate

grievings we seem to renounce our Creed, or at least to distrust the truth of one of its prime and fundamental Articles, which is the Resurrection of the Dead. And therefore St. Paul seeing the Chri∣stians in his days were apt to grow exorbitant in their sorrowings for the Dead, thinks fit to give them this instruction, 1 Thess. 4. 13. But I would not have you to be igno∣rant, Brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him; in which words he does plainly declare, that we do in a man∣ner confute and dissolve our Belief of the great Article of the Resur∣rection, if we lay the loss of our Friends so much to heart, and in∣gulph our selves in sorrows as those that have no hope. And indeed, what can be more unlike, or contrary to

the Faith and Belief of Christians, than that unruly and excessive sor∣row of Rachel for the loss of her Children, whom the Scripture seems not only to note, but to brand and stigmatize for her impatience, in that she wept for her Children, and would not be comforted, because they were not? Ah Lord! what a sad thing is this to contradict our pro∣fession, to say, we believe a Resur∣rection, and yet sorrow as if there were none? But in short, either we believe a Resurrection, or we do not; if we do believe it, why do we bewail the Death of our Friends with so much bitterness and lamen∣tation, as if they were utterly lost and gone, as if they were past all joys and comfort, and were to pe∣rish for ever? Si enim à miseriis abstrahit, si in meliorem vitam in∣ducit; si ne{que} misera ipsa est, nec ullius particeps miseriae, cur mala censetur? sin hoc largitur, ut sem∣piternis bonis potiamur, vitam{que}

quam mortalem habemus, aeternam adipiscamur, quid morte beatius esse possit? that is, says Cicero, if we do re∣ally believe that death doth abstract and deliver us from the miseries of this World, and sets us far out of harms way, and that 'tis an entrance and introduction to a better life, then what reason have we to look upon it as such a sad and grievous thing to die? But if it be further granted that Death puts us into the possession of Eternal and never-fail∣ing blessings, and that it slides us from a short and fading to an Ever∣lasting Life; we are then to repute Death our best and dearest Friend, in that it leads and ushers us to such Endless Happiness. But if we do not believe a Resurrection, why are we so rash and formal as to own an Article that we dare not rely on? Ah! We little think that the greatest Atheist in the World can∣not make a greater Argument a∣gainst our Religion than we do our

selves, when we let loose the reins of our passions, and refuse to be comforted for the dead, and wound and pierce our hearts thorough with great and mighty sorrows, thereby testifying that we little believe a Life to come, or a better State than this is, or that our Friends have ex∣chang'd for the better: and there∣fore we had best look to it, and en∣deavour to curb and check our pas∣sions, that we do not give occasion to our Enemies to blaspheme and say, where is that Heaven, that place of rest and blessedness which you so much talk of? where is that Faith of a future Life and a judgment to come, which you so zealously pro∣fess? how can you perswade us that you believe what you profess, seeing that upon the trial you are ready to kill your selves with very grief for the Death of your Friends and Re∣lations, and thereby give a strong suspicion, that you think this World the best Paradise for your Friends

to live in, and the other the best only to talk of.

To conclude, Let us endeavour to possess our hearts and minds with a firm hope and perswasion of a fu∣ture State and Eternal Life; and then we shall be the freer to think of our own Death, and be less troubled to part with our Friends and Relations when God thinks fit to take them away. Simplicius in his Comment upon Epictetus cap. 33. does rightly observe, how variously we are af∣fected at the Death of others and the Death of our own Relations, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, If we hear, sayes he, of the Death of anothers Wife or Chil∣dren, we are not much concern'd, but put it off very slightly, and say, that their dying is no wonder at all, and that there is no reason to be much troubled at it, forasmuch as Death is natural and common to all. But then, sayes he, when we

happen to lose any of our own Rela∣tions, we seem to have another guise opinion of Death, and to change our note, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, We hear of and see the death and burial of others patiently enough, and without being much troubled or in∣wardly concern'd, but when it comes home to our selves, and we lose any of our own dear Friends and Rela∣tions, we are presently in a storm, and rise into a supream passion, and in the bitterness of our Souls cry out, that we are miserable and undone, and the unhappiest people in the World, and that there is no loss like our loss, and that none has such great afflictions as we, and then there is nothing to be heard or seen but great Lamentations and Mourning, and a huge Scene of sorrows. In which words, the Philosopher does rightly note our partiality to our

selves, and how that we esteem and look upon Death to be only unkind and cruel to our selves and those that belong to us, and that we can hear and think kindly enough of it at a distance, but when it comes nigh us, and touches us in our Re∣lations, then we are all mutiny and confusion. And therefore it is a great Argument of our folly and in∣discretion, to waver and alter so much in our opinion of Death, as to entertain worse thoughts of it at one time than another. For al∣beit, the more than ordinary sympa∣thy that is between us and our Rela∣tions, may defend and justifie our sorrowing somewhat more for them than for perfect Strangers; yet it is against common sense and reason, that we should be so desperately dis∣quieted at that Providence which deprives us of our Relations, whereas we are so little concern'd at the com∣mon fatality of Mankind. And there∣fore it behoves us in point of Pru∣dence,

to labour to have always the same thoughts and opinions of Death, and to count it no more cruel, no more an Enemy, when it seizeth upon our own flesh and blood, than when it seizeth upon the rest of humane race: And if we make no great matter of the death of others whom we see daily fall to the ground, looking upon it as a natural thing for them to die: so let us consider, that 'tis every whit as natural for our Relations to die, and nothing happens to them but what is common to all flesh living. And this consideration the Philosopher looks upon as very just and reason∣able, and prescribes it as an excel∣lent Remedy and Antidote against all immoderate sorrowing for the loss of our dearest Friends and Re∣lations: But alas! why do I urge such a poor consideration as that of Death being common to all men, to asswage and mitigate our sorrows for the Dead, as if any consideration in

the World could do it more effectu∣ally than our Christian Hope and the belief of another and better life hereafter. Some indeed may at∣tempt and endeavour to quiet and silence their sorrows by Arguments drawn from reason, and the acute sayings of Philosophers; and think they may be able from meer natural courage, and some bold principles, to laugh at and despise Death as well as the Stoicks did in their high rants and sullen moods: but no Arguments, or the most stubborn Principles in the World, can be of equal force with our Christian Hope for that purpose. A Hope that opens to us the Casements of Heaven, and re∣presents to us in a great measure the glories of the Resurrection; the ex∣act and full knowledge whereof can∣not be attain'd in this narrow state of mortality, and is far transcending all humane reach and comprehen∣sion; so that for me to go about to make a full and compleat description

of the excellencies and perfections appropriate to the future state, would be the same fondness as to attempt to illustrate a Star with my Finger: But yet for our great com∣fort and incouragement at present, the Scripture gives us this plain no∣tice and information of a glorious transformation as to our vile and ter∣restrial part; How that then our vile Bodies shall be chang'd, and made like unto Christs glorious Body, that this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible incorruption. How then can we that have this Hope faint in our mind, or so much as shed a tear at the departure of our Friends out of this miserable Life, seeing it will be so much for their advantage, so very much for their preferment to leave us? For they that are accounted worthy to obtain that World, and the Resurrection from the Dead, shall strangely ex∣ceed themselves, and surpass all the excellencies of humane Na∣ture

at present, and be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, e∣qual to the Angels, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, bear the Image and Form of Christ himself. And this equality to Angels, and likeness to Christ, is no more than what we have sure and certain grounds to hope for from the plain and positive words of Scri∣pture; and therefore we seem either not to believe or else to envy the happiness of those that depart this Life, when we are in such extream Agonies of sorrow for their removal from us. Wherefore let this Hope be always our support and comfort, that Death is a certain advantage to our Friends that have so lived as to die the Death of the Righteous; and that they are freed from the least touch or feeling of those sicknesses, and pains, and Diseases, and Imper∣fections, and from those toils and hardships which this mortal frail con∣dition exposes us unto. And having this Hope and belief of a better life hereafter, Let us rather bless God

for delivering our dearest Friends from this present evil World, and taking them away from the evil to come; Let us, I say, bless God for doing that sin∣gular favour to our Friends whom we lov'd so well, as to translate them to Glory and Happiness before us, and in giving them such an early possession of that Crown of Life which we all so much strive and pray to attain, rather than re∣pine at Gods Providence in not letting them stay any longer with us in this Val∣ley of Tears. Let us look upon Death rather as a mercy than a Judgment to our Friends which die in the Lord, for they shall rest from their Labours, and have all Tears wip't away from their Eyes, and shall never know the meaning of a sorrow or trouble any more; in a word, Let us look upon Death as a Friend ra∣ther than an Enemy to our Relations, which puts a period to the days of their Pilgrimage, which are but few and evil at the best, and esteem it a blessed change, which is the term of their Bondage, the end of their Cares, the conclusion of their Sorrows, and the beginning of end∣less Happiness, and which passes them through the Gates of Death to the King∣dom of Glory.

FINIS.

Notes

• Ita non est quod nos suspiciamus, tan∣quam inter nostra po∣siti: mutuo accepimus. Ʋsus fructus noster est, cujus tempus ille arbi∣ter muneris sui tempe∣rat. Nos oportet in promptu habere quae in incertum diem data sunt; & appellatos sine querela reddere. Pessimi est Debitoris Creditoris facere con∣vitium. Omnes ergo nostros, & quos super∣stites lege nascendi op∣tamus, & quos prae∣cedere justissimum ipsorum votum est, sic amare debemus tanquam nihil nobis de perpetuitate; immo nihil de diuturnitate eorum promissum est. Sen. cap. x. ad Man.